Blog

Day in Dalanzadgad while the team sort the 4x4 after the sandstorm yesterday. Hoping to drive back to Ulaanbaatar tomorrow. Though it currently looks like another sandstorm is about to hit us.
Quick overview of the specialist kit used on the exped:
Tent: Hileberg Nammatj 2. The goto tent for most ...

I am now in Dalanzadgad, the capital of the South Gobi, and where I will turn North to Ulaanbaatar. It's taken 4 days of hard driving to get here, but today took hard to another level. After we past Bulgan heading for Dalanzadgad we could see a sandstorm building in front and slightly North. It didn...

One of the more unusual sights I have seen in the past week was this (see photo) mountain of ice in the middle of the desert - no other ice or snow around. We passed it today on our long slow drive out of the Gobi. Still at least another 3 days driving to go. The ice mountain was between Bayantooroi...

Having called in my safety support to extract me from the Gobi, it turns out the only seriously viable route out is the one I was planning on walking. A vehicle would not make it over the mountain pass (now to my West) that I came over because of the snow. The same is true for most of the mountain...

I came to the decision yesterday to stop and extract from the Gobi.
I had come out here to attempt to cross the desert unsupported and unassisted using only human power. But the weight of the cart, with enough food, fuel, tent, water (to next water) and survival equipment for the duration, was near ...

Felling good today. Made good progress but still extremely exhausted at the end of the day.
This winter gobi crossing attempt was always going to be an exploratory attempt as there were a lot of unknowns that would present themselves once I got started. Whether the water we located on the recce wa...

The photo is of the location where I camped last night. Not most peoples idea of a desert, Frozen river and snow! It was exceptionally cold the morning when I packed up camp. It was still dark and snowing with a bitting wind. A few hours later after some serious climbing up and over a mountain pas...

Went up one mountain pass to start the day and came down another (nicknamed Hells Canyon on the cycle recce) in the dark tonight. In between I had a long steady climb with up to 2 feet of snow. Very tough going trying to pull the cart through the snow - on my hands and knees at times. A little mor...

Day 3 was a but easier than the first 2. The surface was hard (better for the cart wheels) and it was mostly flat until the last 5km when I started climbing in the the mountains. I have been adjusting things all day trying to optimise my efforts - I have moved the cart load around to better balanc...

Very cold night and start this morning. The cold made packing away the tent and loading the cart very slow. But I started walking around 8.40 and did a solid day finishing at 17.45 when it got dark. Very hard day mostly uphill and in soft sand so was quite pleased when I calculated I did about 30k...